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WORDS o F TRUTH 




TO 



THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND. 




BY GEO. W. BROWN, M. D., 

Founder^ Publisher and Editor of the Kansas 
Herald of Freedom, 
Vnd Numerous Publications, among whieh are Reminiscences of 
Old John Brown, of Gov. Walker, False Claims Corrected, 
Oriental Researches, etc., etc., etc. 



ROCKFORD, ILL. 



ED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 




1903. 



-<*k 



I^rice lO Oeiits. 



Fi% 










WORDS OF TRUTH 



By G. W BROWN, M D , 

ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS. 

CHAPTER I. 

To Those Who Will Understand. 

He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; 

He who surpasses or subdues mankind 

Must look down on the hate of those below, 

Though high above the suns of glory glow, 

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 

Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 

Contending tempests on his naked head, 

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 

Byron. 

OE UNTO YOU when all men speak well 
of you," are words credited to Jesus, Luke 
6: 26, and why? Because, "He who will be 
pleasing to all, must speak words which will be grate- 
ful to all." Always agree with others however gross 
or vile, if ambitious to be a general favorite with the 
people. Never attempt to correct their errors, or ex- 
pose their falsehoods, but by honeyed words tickle 
their vanity and magnify their importance. Said 
Paul: "All that shall live godly, [that is blameless] 
shall suffer persecution. " He and Jesus, if Bible 
authority can be trusted, are notable examples of that 
persecution, for they experienced in their own per- 
sons the truthfulness of the assertion. 

Our own George Washington was a modern ex- 
ample. No sooner was the war of the Revolution 




6 

closed, and the hero of our National independence 
was retired to civil life, than Calumny and Detraction 
raised their vile heads, and attempted to rob him of 
those honors he had attained on a hundred battle 
fields. He who seeks information along those lines 
will be astonished to see how base and vile were the 
traducers of him who "Was first in war, first in peace, 
and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 

The critical student of history finds with the poet, 
quoted above, that the reward of noble achievements 
is vilification and abuse. The more lofty the position 
attained the more crushing are the assaults of the un- 
principled vulgar. 

The "milk and water men," they who have no 
opinions of their own ; who float along with the popu- 
lar current, antagonizing no one, pass quietly through 
life, and sink into unknown graves, to be forgotten 
ere the grass is green growing above them. They 
escape calumny, and the libeler has no occasion to 
rack his brains to invent scandals to cover him all 
over with reproachful epithets. He was in nobody's 
way; so when the vital spark fled he sank into a 
peaceful rest, his absence only noted by the small 
circle in which he lately moved. 

How very different such a life from one who has 
plunged into the thickest of the strife; who has 
shaped public opinion, and directed the movements 
of the people to attain some worthy end! He has 
been the observed of all observers. The ambitious 
who aspired to occupy his place ; they who fattened on 
his kindness, forgetful of the favors which came from 
his hands, have become his assailants; while the pro- 
fessional calumniators have concocted a multitude of 
falsehoods to his prejudice, and the libeler has pub- 
lished those falsehoods to the world. With no repu- 



tation to lose, or shame to blush, the more egregious 
the misrepresentation the more glorious the achieve- 
ment. 

"When Kansas was thrown open to settlement, and 
the issue was joined, a Free State, or a Slave State, 
the active friends of the former cast about for suit- 
able persons to lead in the conflict. Dr. Charles 
Robinson, who had passed through an exciting con- 
test in the pioneer settlement of California, and had 
come out victorious with distinguished honors, was 
selected by the friends of free Kansas in New Eng- 
land, to superintend the interests of freedom in the 
new Territory. He came with an untarnished repu- 
tation, and all men, save a few disunion Abolitionists, 
of the Garrison stripe, desirous of involving the 
North and South in civil war, indorsed, and recog- 
nized him as their leader. 

Faithful to every trust, Dr. Charles Eobinson was 
elected by nearly a unanimous vote, Governor of 
Kansas under the Topeka Constitution, and as such 
was the recognized head and front of the Free State 
party, until support of that Constitution was merged 
into the Wyandot Constitution, under which we were 
admitted a State into the Union. Then he was made 
Governor under that instrument, by the Suffrages of 
a Free People. 

Gov, Eobinson remained the honored leader of the 
party, though demagogues found he was in the way 
of their ambition; so they made war on him and his 
administration, and attempted to usurp the authority 
which both National and State Constitutions had 
placed in his charge. When he would not quietly 
submit to the intrigues and shameful dictations of his 
enemies, they attempted to crush him under the 
forms of law; but he came out of the trying ordeal 



8 

the victor and unscathed, the charges against him be- 
ing dismissed, to be revived near a decade after his 
death, shall we say, because his surviving widow de- 
clined to engage his detractor to write his biography? 
We have reasons for such inquiry. 

Another strong movement, having the same object 
in view with the New Englanders, went out from 
Western Pennsylvania, under the immediate super- 
vision of G. W. Brown. The latter had served an ap- 
prenticeship at cabinet making in Gonneautville, 
Pa. ; he had completed a thorough educational course 
at law, and was admitted to practioe at the Pennsyl- 
vania bar; he had been eight years connected with 
the press, the last seven years his own publisher; he 
had been an active member of the Free Soil party 
since its organization at Buffalo in 1848, and much of 
the time chairman of the Executive Committee of 
that party for Crawford county. His paper led in 
circulation and influence all others in the State West 
of the mountains outside of Pittsburg. The North- 
ern press universally conceded, by notices in their 
respective journals, that he was the person of all per- 
sons, because of his energy, ability and experience as 
a journalist and anti-slavery leader, to establish a 
Free State paper in Kansas. With the largest party 
that went to Kansas at any time in one body, this 
Brown, after issuing 21,000 copies of his Herald of 
Freedom, and scattering them broadcast over the 
country before taking down his steam power press to 
ship to Kansas, taking his wife, his seven printers, his 
parents, brother and sister, his wife's parents soon fol- 
lowing, located in Lawrence, and positively printed on 
Kansas soil the first Free State newspaper published 
in Kansas. His paper aroused the hate of the pro- 
slavery party, and was temporarily crushed by it dur_ 



9 

ing the second year of its publication, to be revived a 
few months later, at the end of the editor's four 
months' imprisonment, indicted for high treason for 
opposing the pro-slavery usurpation, the paper in a 
very short time quadrupling its former circulation. 

Soon after the revival of the Herald of .Freedom, a 
rival press, under the direction of an inexperienced 
journalist, made its appearance. Around that paper 
rallied the press correspondents and all new comers 
who wished to succeed as leaders of the Free State 
party, to the exclusion of those who had been such up 
to that time. The method they employed was to 
crush those already in their way. 

Mark Twain, in a somewhat lengthy published 
letter, detailed his experience several years ago in 
running as an independent candidate for Governor of 
New York. In giving his experience he illustrates 
what Gov. Eobinson, Hon. Eli Thayer, G. W. Brown 
and others have realized in their own persons, at 
the hands of the assassins of reputations. We copy: 

RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR.-Mark Twain Experiences 
a "Campaign of Defamation." 

A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great 
State of New York, to run against Stewart L. Woodford and 
John T. Hoffman, on an independent ticket. I somehow felt that I 
had one prominent advantage over these gentlemen, and that was 
good character. It was easy to see by the newspapers that if they 
had ever known what it was to bear a good name, that time had 
gone by. It was plain that in these latter years they had become 
familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the very 
moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in se- 
cret, there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the 
deeps of my happiness — and that was the having to hear my 
name bandied about in familiar connection with those of such 
people. I grew more and more disturbed. Finally I wrote my 
grandmother about it. Her answer came quick and sharp. She 
said: 



10 

"You have never done one single thing in all jour life to be 
ashamed of — not one. Look at the newspapers — look at them 
and comprehend what sort of characters Woodford and Hoffman 
are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level 
and enter a public canvass with them." 

It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that 
night. But after all I could not recede. I was fully committed 
and must go on with the fight. As I was looking listlessly over 
the papers at breakfast I came across this paragraph, and I may 
truly say I never was so confounded before: 

"Perjury. — Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the 
people as a candidate for governor, he will condescend to explain 
how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses, 
in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury 
was to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a 
meagre plaintain patch, their only stay and support in their be- 
reavement and their desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself 
as well as to the great people whose suffrage he asks, to clear the 
matter up. ' Will he do it?" 

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heart- 
less charge — I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard 
of Wakawak! I didn't know a plaintain patch from a kangaroo! 
I did not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the 
day slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning 
the same paper had this — nothing more: 

"Significant. — Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively 
silent about the Cochin China perjury." 

[Mem. — During the rest of the campaign this paper never re- 
ferred to me in any other way than as "the infamous perjurer 
Twain."] 

Next came The Gazette with this: 

"Wanted to Know. — Will the new candidate for governor 
deign to explain to certain of his fellow citizens (who are suffering 
to vote for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Mon- 
tana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these 
things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in 
his 'trunk' (newspapers he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled 
to give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred 
and feathered him and rode him on a rail, and then advised him 
to leave a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in 
the camp. Will he do this?" 



11 

Coiled anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For 
I never was in Montana in my life. 

[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as "Twain, the 
Montana Thief."] 

I got to picking up papers apprehensively — much as one would 
lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattle- 
snake under it. One day this met my eye: 

"The Lie Nailed! — By the sworn affidavits of Michael 
O'Flanagan, Esq., of the Five Points, and Mr. Kit Burns and 
John Allen, of Water street, it is established that Mr. Mark 
Twain's vile sentiment that the lamented grandfather of our noble 
standard bearer, John T. Hoffman, was hanged for highway rob- 
bery, is a brutal and gratuitous lie, without a single shadow of 
foundation in fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see 
such shameful means resorted to, to achieve political success, as 
the attacking of the dead in their graves and defiling their honored 
names with slander. When we think of the anguish this miser- 
able falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and friends of the 
deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted 
public to summary and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. 
But no, — let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated conscience — 
(though if passion should get the better of the public and in its 
blind fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it is but 
too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish the 
perpetrators of the deed)." 

The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out 
of bed with dispatch that night, and out at the back door also, 
while the "outraged and insulted public" surged in the front way, 
breaking furniture and windows in their righteous indignation as 
they came, and taking off such property as they could carry when 
they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the book and say 
that I never slandered Gov. Hoffman's grandfather. More; I 
never even heard of him or mentioned him up to that day and 
date. 

[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from 
always referred to me afterward as "Twain the Body-Snatcher."] 

The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the 
following: 

"A Sweet Candidate. — Mark Twain, who was to make such 
a blighting speech at a mass meeting of the independents la6t 
night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated 
that he had been knocked down by a runaway team and his leg 



12 

broken in two places — sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, 
and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the in- 
dependents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge and 
pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the 
absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their 
standard-bearer. A certain man wds seen to reel into Mr- 
Tivain's hotel last night in a beastly state of intoxication. It is 
the imperative duty of the independents to prove that this besotted 
brute was not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last! This 
is a case that admits of no shirking. The voice of the people de- 
mands in thunder tones: 'Who is that max?' " 

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it 
was really my name that was coupled with this disgraceful sus- 
picion. Three long years had passed over my head since I had 
tasted ale, beer, wine or liquor of any kind. 

[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say 
that I saw myself confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens 
Twain" in the next issue of that journal without a pang — notwith- 
standing I knew that with monotonous fidelity the paper would go 
on calling me so to the very end.] 

By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important 
part of my mail matter. This form was common: 

"How about that old woman you kiked of your premisers which 
was beging. Pol Pry." 

And this: 

"There is things which you have done which is unbeknowns to 
anybodv but me. You had better trot out a few dols. to yours 
truly or you'll hear thro' the papers from Handy Andy." 

This is about the idea. I could continue them until the reader 
was surfeited, if desirable. 

Shortly the principal Republican journals "convicted" me of 
wholesale bribery, and the leading Democratic paper "nailed" an 
aggravated case of blackmailing to me. 

[In this way I acquired two additional names: "Twain, the 
Filthv Corruptionist," and '"Twain, the Loathsome Embracer."] 

By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an 
"answer' 'to all the dreadful charges that were laid to me, that the 
editors and leaders of my part}' said it would be political ruin for 
me to remain silent any longer. As if to make their appeal tha 
more imperative, the following appeared in one of the papers the 
very next day. 

"Behold the Man! — The Independent candidate still main- 



13 

tains silence. Because he dare not speak. Every accusation 
against him has been amply proved, and they have been indorsed 
and re-indorsed by his own eloquent silence, till at this day he 
stands forever convicted. Look upon your candidate, Indepen- 
dents! Look upon the 'Infamous Perjurer!' the 'Montana Thief!' 
the 'Body Snatcher!' Contemplate your incarnate 'Delirium 
Tremens!' your 'Filthy Corruptionist!' your 'Loathsome Em- 
bracer!' Gaze upon him — ponder him well — and then say if you 
can give your honest votes to a creature who has earned this dis- 
mal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares not open his 
mouth in denial of any one of them!" 

There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so, in deep 
humiliation, I set about preparing to "answer" a mass of baseless 
charges and mean and wicked falsehoods. But I never finished 
the task, for the very next morning a paper came out with a new 
horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me with burning 
a lunatic asylum with all its inmates because it obstructed the 
view from my house. This threw me into a sort of panic. Then 
came the charge of poisoning my uncle to get his property, with 
an imperative demand that the grave should be opened. This 
drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was ac- 
cused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to pre- 
pare the food for the foundling hospital when I was warden. I 
was wavering — wavering. And at last; as a due and fitting cli- 
max to the shameless persecution that party rancor had inflicted 
upon me, nine little toddling children of all shades of color and 
degrees of raggedness were taught to rush on to the platform at a 
public meeting and clasp me around the legs and call me "Pa." 

I gave it up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I 
was not equal to the requirements of a gubernatorial campaign in 
the state of New York, and so I sent in ray withdrawal from the 
candidacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed it, "Truly yours, once 
a decent man, but now MARK TWAIN, 

"I. P., M. T., B. S., D. T., F. C, and L. E." 

May we not suggest, in closing this chapter, that 
professed historians will find in the above, models for 
vituperative talent, when they wish to crush an op- 
ponent; though it will be an easier task to draw on 
the stale, effete, worn out and unprofitable libels of 
nearly fifty years ago, concocted by the predecessors, 
rival journalists and politicians of those they assail, 



u 

who, lacking merit of their own, labored to lower 
those in the way of their ambition to their own 
vulgar level. 




CHAPTER II. 

High Authority for Silence. 

E WHO TURNS aside to punish every snarling 
cur aud yelping whiffet that besets his path will 
find little else to do in life. These creatures 
make no distinction between true greatness, whose 
labors have achieved National and world-wide 
results — the real benefactors of the race — and the 
penny-a-liner, boasting of his poverty and begging 
aid to enable him to pursue his malicious calling, 
eulogizing a freebooter and a midnight assassin who 
struck down his political opponents by murdering 
and mutilating them in cold blood. 

No reply to such brutal assaults are needed. All 
the world knows that the person who becomes promi- 
nent because of ability, position and real worth, 
arouses the envy, the jealousy, and the hate of the 
iess fortunate. 

Thomas Jefferson, the chairman of the Committee 
that drafted the Declaration of Amerioan Indepen- 
dence, and who rose by his own merit to the honored 
distinction of being President of this great Republic, 
experienced in his own person the shafts of malice 
and calumny. How he met these libelous attacks is 
best told by himself, in letters to various friends, 
quoted on p. 122 of "The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia," 
late from the press. He says: 



15 

"I laid it down as a law to myself, to take no notice of the 
thousand calumnies issued against me, but to trust my character 
to my own conduct, and the good sense and candor of my fellow 
citizens. . . I have never even contradicted the thousands of 
calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. . . I 
have been too much the butt of falsehoods myself to do others the 
injustice of permitting them to make the lea6t impression on me 
[by their misrepresentations]. 

"Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the news- 
papers, it would be more than all my own time, and that of 
twenty aids could effect. For while I should be answering one 
twenty new ones would be invented. I have thought it better to 
trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me 
by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have 
placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch since 
which a particular party has supposed it might answer some 
view of theirs to vilify one in the public eye. Some, I know, will 
not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably 
betraying the views with which they give it. But this is an injury 
to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public 
think proper to call to its councils. 

"I suppose that in public life, a man whose political principles 
have any decided character, and who has energy enough to give 
them effect must always expect to encounter political and personal 
hostility from those of adverse principles." 

Thus President Jefferson. 

Gov. Crittenden, of Vermont, distinguished as the 
first executive of that State, and one of the worthiest 
of them, suffered the usual amount of malevolent, 
personal and partisan abuse. When approached by 
friends and told of the calumnious charges made 
against him, and asked: 

"What do you propose to do about them ?" Quoth 
the Governor: 

"Do, why I'll do as the moon does when the dogs 
bay at it" 

"How is that? What does it do?" 

"It goes right on. What more can I do?" 

When G rover Cleveland was first nominated for the 



16 

Presidency, in 1884, after having been indorsed by a 
majority of near 200,000 of the people of his native 
state for Governor, it was thought to defeat him in 
his higher aspirations, by setting on foot the most 
shameful scandals to his prejudice, such substantially, 
as Mark Twain, — quoted in the preceding chapter, — 
has so forcibly related in regard to himself. Henry 
Ward Beecher, who was a great admirer of Mr. Cleve- 
land, and well knew his moral worth, wrote him 
inquiring — 

"What answer shall we make to the terrible libels 
the opposing partisan press is publishing in regard to 
your past life?" Back came the laconic reply: 

"Tell the Truth." 

That is all the friends of the lamented Gov. Bobin- 
son, the Hon. Eli Thayer, or G. W. Brown for him- 
self, ask of assailants. To rehash falsehoods which 
have been adjusted by Courts, pronounced untenable 
by action of the State Legislature, repudiated by the 
voice of the people, and by the rehearsal of facts 
antagonizing lies, does not betray honesty or integrity 
on the part of the scandal-monger. 

Tell the Truth, ye libelers, and no other favor 
will be asked at your hands. To reply to all the 
inventions of envy and malice and falsehood, as 
Jefferson truthfully said, will be more than any man's 
time and that of twenty aids can effect. For while 
one lie is being answered twenty fresh ones will be 
invented and put in circulation. 

They who peddle scandals will do well to remember 
the old proverb — "Slander, like chickens, comes home 
to roost." 

The following Aphorisms are in harmony with the 
above : 

"If thou hast to do with a disputer while he is in 



17 

heat, act as one not to be moved. Thou hast the 
advantage over him, if only in keeping silent, when 
his speech is bad; for then thou art right in the 
opinion of the great." 

The foregoing is a French~rendering, Anglicised, of 
a papyrus manuscript found in the ruins of the 
Egyptian Thebes, written in Hieratic by Ptah-hotep, 
an officer under King Assa, during the fifth dynasty, 
believed to have been written 4,000 years before the 
commencement of the Christian era. Ptah-hotep, at 
the ripe old age of 110 years, full of wisdom, as the 
quotation attests, wrote for the instruction and guid- 
ance of his son, and of all who shall read. 

Sambo expressed the same idea in his own vernac- 
ular: 

"It don't pay to do much talkin' w'en vou'r mad enough to choke, 
Kase de words dat stings de deepes' am de ones dat's neber spoke; 
Let de oder feller wrangle till de storm am blown away, 
Den he'll do a pile o' thinkin' 'bout de t'ings you didn't say." 

Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended 
in a newspaper. So long as all that is said is said 
against me, I feel a certain assurance of success; but 
so soon as the honeyed words of praise are spoken for 
me, I feel as one who lies unprotected before his 
enemies. — Emerson. 

Some persons seem to think a man is better for 
being dead, and that he should not be blamed for his 
crimes, however atrocious. This idea has been 
immortalized in the proverb: "Speak no evil of the 
dead." That proverb should be amended to read: 
Speak and write only TEUTH of the dead, and of 
the living. 

"He who stops to kick a skunk, though he kills his 
antagonist, gets the worst of the fight." 

The puppy, barking and snapping at your heels, is 
immune from harm because of his insignificance. 



18 

If you wrestle with a chimney-sweep, whether you 
throw or be thrown, you get smirched. — Ltjthek. 

The well-poised man seeks Truth, and trusts it. 
He does not defend it; he knows it does not need 
defense: he knows it will vindicate itself. — Eev. J. E. 
Koberts. 

Great is the power of misrepresentation, but fortu- 
nately, this power does not long endure. 

A woman without character sees a strumpet in 
every member of her own sex; and every relator and 
copyist of lies suspicions that all with whom he comes 
in contact are as false to Truth as himself. 

Had Milton lived and wrote in our day, we should 
know to whom, and to what event he referred when 
he wrote: 

"The midnight ruffians seize their peaceful foes: 
They drag them forth from warm and quiet beds; 
They bleed, they die! Darkness involves the act. 
Shameless Falsehoods conceal the savage crime, 
And foul-mouthed Slander blackens their names; 
While Hate shouts and wings the wretches on to fame." 

A Lie when started, is so nimble-footed it can 
circumnavigate the globe, while tardy Truth is quest- 
ioning the propriety of pursuing the ignoble rascal. — 
Anonymous. 

Here's freedom to him that would read, 

Here's freedom to him that would write! 
There's none ever feared that the Truth should be heard, 

But they whom the Truth would indict. — Burns. 

A eulogizer of crime, and he who glorifies midnight 
assassination, and ransacks the partisan press of half 
a century ago to find calumnious material to malign 
the real heroes in the great Kansas contest for free- 
dom, will find he has mistaken his mission when a 
truthful record is made up. 



19 

CHAPTER III. 

Press Notices. 

\ I /HE Following notices by the press, and by part- 
<&\}S) ies who have read our publications, correcting 
the errors through ignorance or design of professed 
historians, will be read with interest by those in 
pursuit of Truth. 

The first is from the Lawrence, Kan., Journal, the 
oldest newspaper in Kansas, if its predecessors are 
taken into account. O. E. Learnard, Esq., its editor 
and publisher, was one of our earliest pioneers, and 
knows of himself whereof he writes. After reading our 
"Reminiscences of Gov. Robert J. Walker, with the 
True Story of the Rescue of Kansas from Slavery," he 
wrote : 

"To every Kansan of the early days the name of G. 
"W. Brown, — he was not then a doctor — is one of the 
familiar names and one not to be forgotten. Indeed 
Mr. Brown was not only a well known figure in early 
Kansas history, but an unique character as well. 
Unlike most of the men, and for that matter, most of 
the women, he was not identified with either of the 
factions into which the Free State party of thos3 days 
was divided, he was simply a feature quite apart and 
independent of each. Not that he was without a 
following, by any means, but that he submitted to no 
limitation, or restraint of his personal views and 
opinions. Nor was he at any time or under any 
circumstances distrustful of his own judgment or 
hesitant in word or deed about what ought to be said 
or done. It is apparent also that during his long 
absence from Kansas he has not lost interest in the 
events in which he participated so largely during the 



20 

"Kansas Conflict." Accordingly Dr. Brown comes to 
the work in hand well equipped for the service, and 
has produced a book that will take a permanent place 
in the literature of the times and events of which he 
writes. 

"We do not mean to imply that the work is inerrant^ 
but in the main and especially in its personal features 
he portrays the qualities and characteristics of men 
and affairs with strength and reasonable fairness. 
Tho' he was neither a partisan of Lane nor Robinson 
it is hardly necessary to say he entertains very little 
respect for the one and a good deal of respect for the 
other. While it is unfortunate that the differences 
which existed between those two men, greatly magni- 
fied, could not and seemingly cannot be laid to rest, 
perhaps it is not to be wondered at however, in view 
of the evident bias and prejudice of alleged histo- 
rians — alike ignorant and indifferent to the truths of 
history, that men personally familiar with the facts 
should repudiate and repel their absurd assumptions. 
Just now Gov. Robinson is the target and naturally 
Dr. Brown gives a good deal of space to his defence 
and the vindication of his well-earned reputation. 

"That Gov. Robinson was the trusted leader during 
the momentous struggles out of which was born the 
great Commonwealth in which we live is a fact 
beyond the reach of cavil or slander. It has been 
claimed that he was responsible for the hostilities 
which occurred, and in a sense this was true, for he 
was prompt to resent and resist the encroachments of 
the slave power, and for this he will ever be honored 
and respected so long as a true Kansan remains who 
shared with him the trials and perils of those trouble- 
some times. It is not, however, so much the perpetu- 
ation of the Lane and Robinson controversy that has 



21 

evoked the more recent outbursts of his critics as the 
fact of Gov. Robinson's changed attitude towards 
John Brown and his career in Kansas, in regard to 
which, for it is true that the change occurred; Mr. S. 
C. Smith in a recent publication has given the 
rational explanation. Up to a certain time well 
remembered, the champions of John Brown did not 
and would not believe he was responsible for, 
much less that he actually participated in the Potta- 
watomie massacre. John Brown himself had persis- 
tently denied the fact; but when incontrovertible 
testimony was adduced to substantiate the charge, 
men like Gov. Robinson, could no longer endorse him; 
he had been guilty of a horrible inhumanity, and he 
had lied about it to his friends. 

"The wise men of the east, however, having been 
overwhelmed in a controversy long and bitterly pro- 
tracted, now had no alternative but to confess or 
justify; they justified. The writer hereof does not 
care to enter upon the John Brown controversy, 
having nothing to add or subtract from the views 
expressed heretofore on the subject. While not at 
all points in sympathy with the letter or spirit of the 
work under consideration, we do not hesitate to say 
that Dr. Brown has made a valuable addition to the 
written history of early Kansas." 

Thus much by Col. Learnard, of the Lawrence 
Journal. 

The following is from the Emporia Republican, 
founded by the late Gov. Eskridge: 

"An Interesting Book. — The Emporia, Kan., Re- 
publican has received one of the most interesting 
books, relating to Kansas history, that has ever come 
to our notice. It is "The Rescue of Kansas from 
Slavery," by Dr. G. W. Brown, the founder of 



22 

Emporia. The good Doctor takes up the history from 
the year 1854, and carries in a clear, splendidly 
written and lucid manner through the perilous times 
known as the 'border war.' During this period he 
took, as many Kansas people will remember, no small 
part and was always found in the forefront of the 
struggle bravely waging battle for a free State and 
human liberty. That was in the hey-day of his early 
manhood. Now, in the sere and autumnal days of 
life, his mind travels backward to the time when his 
face was to the setting sun, and he was righting the 
savage forces for the reclaiming of the wilderness, 
and he paints with glowing pen the picture of those 
early days, of the place and the strife, of the joys and 
the sorrows of those who broke the virgin sod one 
day and were defending their homes the next. For 
the sake of human liberty the Doctor suffered impris- 
onment, and a heavy property loss without a murmur 
and when released was in the front rank again fight- 
ing, planning and watchiug as of yore. All hail to 
him and the band of loyal men, now but few, who 
with him laid the foundation of the great and glorious 
state of Kansas. May they, in their closing days, 
receive the richest of blessings, a compensation, in 
part, for their heroism. 

Along with the book the Doctor has sent a mem- 
bership certificate in the original town company. It 
was made out to John Tolles, and signed by G. "W. 
Brown as president, and G. W. Deitzler as secretary. 
The certificate is as follows: 'This certifies that John 
Tolles is the proprietor of one share of ten lots in the 
city of Emporia, Kansas territory, and shall receive a 
good and sufficient warranty deed, in fee-simp] e, for 
the several lots so soon as the shares are drawn, 
subject to the restriction which the members of the 



23 

Emporia Town Company have made against the 
allowing of gambling, and the storing or sale of 
spirituous liquors on said premises.' The certificate is 
dated August 25th, 1857, and is probably the oldest 
official document in the town which relates to the city 
of Emporia. 

"The Doctor states in his letter that the sale of 
intoxicating liquors was prohibited in the early deeds 
of the town, but the rule was rescinded at a later date 
by a majority of the members of the Town Company. 

"The following gem from the book — the concluding 
words of its author — will show the faultless style of 
the Doctor and gives an insight to his literary ability : 

" 'The resistless stream of time bears on its surging 
flood the wasting years. Soon the last actor in these 
memorable scenes will sink beneath its turbid waves, 
and others will occupy his place. As we now look 
back with pride and satisfaction to the pioneers of the 
Mayflower, bringing to America their puritanical 
habits and desire for religious liberty, so may the 
inheritors of the free institutions planted in Kansas 
by our worthy compeers look back with kindred 
gratification to those who witnessed her sufferings 
in her natal morn, and who sacrificed much that she 
might be free.' 

"The volume has more than 200 pages of the most 
valuable early historical data extant, and would be a 
most valuable addition to every library in the State. 
It is clearly printed and well and tastefully bound. 
Several half-tones of the early actors in the 'Kansas 
Drama' are in the volume. 

Of the multitude of notices by the Press and the 
People, and by the few survivors who were actors in 
the Kansas strife, to this date, not a single adverse 
criticism has come under our observation relating to 
our late books on Kansas, other than from the pen of 



24 

one "who was muling and puling in his mother's 
arms," (provided he ever had a human mother,) 
while those he denouncs with demoniac gall were toil- 
ing night and day, spending ease and wealth, to 
make Kansas free. 

The following private letter to the author, indors- 
ing most fully our False Claims Coekected, is by 
a New England gentleman of literary prominence, a 
well-known author, whose books are everywhere read 
with delight. He is familiar with every feature 
of the pioneer history of Kansas, and has made its 
men and measures a careful study. Conscious that 
they who seek to crush the real actors in the Kansas 
drama, because they are not willing to concede the 
freedom of the State was contingent on midnight assas- 
sination, and to avoid subjecting him to being smirch- 
ed and offensively stenched by their mal-odor. we 
have deemed it just to suppress his name. Those 
who wish can supply the omission designated to 
suit themselves. We quote: 

* * * , Mass., Jan. 25, 1903. 

"Dr. George W. Brown, My Dear Sir: — The copy 
of your book: "False Claims of Kansas Historians 
Truthfully Corrected,'' reached me last Monday 
morning, and, though I was very busy at the time, I 
sat down and read half of it before I put it by, and 
the remainder was finished before I went to bed that 
night. Never did title fit a book better. You have so 
clearly and concisely stated in your introduction the 
real condition which has produced the false assertions 
and claims of that class who have hoped to gain a 
reputation for themselves by throwing down the 
original and real workers in that great movement 
which established freedom instead of slavery as the 



25 

policy of this Nation, that if you had gone no further 
you could not have failed of impressing the average 
mind with the reasonableness of your position. But 
what follows in detail leaves no possible chance for 
evasion or escape to those who have traduced the 
true Kansas martyrs and heroes from the severe but 
just penalty you have administered. 

"The contents of the book did not, of course, 
surprise me as much as they will some others, for I 
was in a measure familiar with many of the facts you 
present; but I was impressed with the power, the 
directness, and the effectiveness of the composition as 
a whole; and it struck me that I had seldom seen 
anything so well adapted to the purpose for which it 
was produced. 

"You, of course, have a great advantage over the 
crop of young men and loose writers; for you know 
from personal observation and participation what 
they can get only through the medium of other minds. 
I notice a letter from * * * in which he regrets 
that he ever meddled with Kansas history. I do not 
believe that * * * will make any similar con- 
cession however he may feel, but it is really of little 
consequence so long as the facts are before the world. 

"I had a letter from Mrs. * * * this week. 
She is delighted with the book and she may well be. 

"I inclose a P. O. money order for 85.00, for which 
please send me copies, of the book to that amount. 
You can send by express at book rates, which will be 
cheaper and safer than by post. I propose to do a 
little missionary work with them on my own account, 
making use of your ability and knowledge for that 
purpose. Many believe in Old John Brown because 
they are ignorant of his real character, and they will 
repudiate him when they are informed of the facts. 

"It is a question if even his most extravagant 
eulogist would be in the plight you have placed him 
if he had known at the beginning all the facts con- 
cerning him; for few men are bad enough to defend 
such horrible butcheries as John Brown was guilty 



26 

of, though pride of opinion may cause them to do so. 
"I hope you will keep on writing, for there is still 
a great deal that you know, and which it is important 
should be preserved. Sincerely, * * * " 

A gentleman of prominence in Central Massachu- 
setts, when he learned "False Claims Corrected" 1 
was in press, well knowing the opposition we should 
encounter from the enemies of Truth, wrote: 

"The defenders and admirers of John Brown, as 
well those of Garrison, have presented a fierce front 
to those who have ventured to differ with them. They 
have intimidated many who have been frightened by 
their sharp denunciations. The idea is prevalent that 
it is dangerous to oppose them. I have been cau- 
tioned to avoid a collision with . . . . ; for he 
would quietly use me up, as he had others ; but some- 
how I do not fear him, though it is probably true his 
method of extinguishing an opponent is more power- 
ful than mine. 1 know the facts are with me, and 
they cannot be extinguished. 

"And x think, Doctor Brown, there is no danger 
they will put you down. What you write from per- 
sonal knowledge, fortified by corroborative evidence, 
will stand against all the false sentiment and asser- 
tion they can bring to bear. You are doing good 
service in the interest of Truth, and you must not 
relax until the pen falls irom your nerveless hand." 

The kind reader will allow us to say, the difference 
between the writer and his maligner is this : In the 
interest of historical truth, in our "False Claims 
of Kansas Historians Truthfully Corrected," 
late from the press, we confirmed by incontestable 
evidence, that Old John Brown is not entitled to 
the credit of making Kansas free ; that the act of his, 
which his principal biographer says : "on which hinged 
the "freedom of Kansas," was an unjustifiable homi- 
cide, so terribly brutal and revolting that th« princi- 
pal historian of the times said: "It was one of those 



27 

stern and remorseless acts in civil war which make 
the delicate and sensitive shrink." See Phillip's Con- 
quest, p. 316. And on p. 317 he adds; " It was one 
of those cases at which enlightened humanity will 
shudder. . . A Mr. Sherman, [one of John Brown's 
five victims, ] who was killed at that time, was killed 
by the Camanches, he having gone out to the plains 
to hunt buffalo. The Indians not only killed him, but 
mutilated his body; and his friends, when they found 
the body, brought it home to Pottawotomie." 

That is the kind of lying that was resorted to 47 years 
ago, and a savage Indian tribe was shamefully malign- 
ed and charged with Brown's guilt on account of it. 
After 24 years of continuous, bare-faced lying in the 
same direction, 'deceiving everybody,' as A. A. Law- 
rence truthfully wrote, and the offence proved on him 
beyond the possibility of cavil, then it was an act of 
unparalelled bravery which culminated in « uiverting 
the midnight assassin into a great moral hero ; with 
making Kansas free, and the world free. The labors 
and the losses of those who took their lives in their 
hands, and encountered the aggressions of the slave 
power more than a year before Brown's coming, and 
two years after he left us ; whose nearly every act was 
prejudicial to freedom while he was in Kansas, yet 
his eulogists credit him with the result, and demand 
for him all the honors. They charge those who have 
exposed John Brown's revolting crimes with pecadil- 
loes which are false in fact, and propose to offset the 
murderer's guilt with these fictions. They admit the 
horrible crime of their hero; but attempt to blacken 
the reputation of those who exposed the damnable 
offence, we suppose as a justification for high- 
handed and cold-blooded MURDER ! They should 
know that in courts of human justice a mulitude of 



28 



crimes by one party does not justify retaliation on 
the part of the opposing party. And that they who 
expose guilt are frequently rewarded, but are never 
censured. 

Moltke, the distinguished Prussian, wrote in a 
lady's album: 

"Falsehoods fade, but Truth endures." 
Under this Bismarck, the founder of the German 
Empire, wrote: 

Believe I do that beyond the grave 
Truth always will her banners wave: 
But with the Falsehoods of this life, 
Even Moltke must wage bootless strife. 



VALUABLE BOOKS FOR KANSANS. 

Reminiscences of Gov. Robert J. Walker, with the True Story 
of the Rescue of Kansas from Slavery, i2mo. ; 204 pages, cloth, 
price by mail to any address, $1. 

False Claims of Kansas Historians Truthfully Corrected; a com- 
panion volume to the above, $1. 

The two volumes bound in one, $1. 50. 

Address G. W. Brown, M. D., 907 Kilburn Ave., Rockford, 111. 



